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Photos of Jimmy Carter: The life of the 39th president and humanitarian
Jimmy Carter, a former Georgia governor, served a single notably purposeful but crisis-ridden term as president. After he was denied reelection in 1980, he dedicated himself to humanitarian efforts, for which he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, the Presidential Medal of Freedom and many other honors.
December 29th 2024 at 4:37 p.m. EST
Jimmy Carter in Washington, D.C., in 2006. He left office in 1981 after one term that critics called a failure, but he garnered widespread praise for four decades of work for peace and democracy and earned a Nobel Peace Prize. (Michael Williamson/The Washington Post)
By Washington Post staff
Jimmy Carter, a former Georgia governor, served a single notably purposeful but crisis-ridden term as president. After he was denied reelection in 1980, he dedicated himself to humanitarian efforts, for which he received the Nobel Peace Prize, the Presidential Medal of Freedom and many other honors.
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He died Sunday at 100, his son said.
1931 Carter at age 6, with a sister, Gloria, 4, in the family’s hometown of Plains, Ga. He grew up on the family farm near Plains, in a house with no electricity or running water. (AP)
July 7, 1946 Jimmy Carter, 21, and Rosalynn Smith, 18, on their wedding day, shortly after he graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy. They met through Rosalynn's friendship with Carter's sister Ruth. (Atlanta Journal-Constitution/AP)
Sept. 15, 1966 Carter, then a state senator, with Rosalynn Carter after a strong showing in the Democratic primary for Georgia governor. Segregationist Lester Maddox still won the primary and governorship that year. (Horace Cort/AP)
Sept. 15, 1966 Carter, then a state senator, with Rosalynn Carter after a strong showing in the Democratic primary for Georgia governor. Segregationist Lester Maddox still won the primary and governorship that year. (Horace Cort/AP)
Sept. 15, 1966 Carter, then a state senator, with Rosalynn Carter after a strong showing in the Democratic primary for Georgia governor. Segregationist Lester Maddox still won the primary and governorship that year. (Horace Cort/AP)
Sept. 15, 1966 Carter, then a state senator, with Rosalynn Carter after a strong showing in the Democratic primary for Georgia governor. Segregationist Lester Maddox still won the primary and governorship that year. (Horace Cort/AP)
Sept. 10, 1970 Carter, with his mother, Lillian Carter, by his side, is greeted by supporters in Atlanta after the Democratic gubernatorial primary in 1970. Carter went on to defeat former governor Carl Sanders in a primary runoff and then won the general election. (John Storey/AP)
Jan. 12, 1971 Judge Robert H. Jordan administers the oath of office to Carter, then 46, at the Capitol in Atlanta. As Georgia governor, Carter appointed more women and minorities to state government positions than all of his predecessors combined. (AP)
June 13, 1976 Carter and brother Billy, always the family rebel and a well-known figure during the Carter presidency, in one of the family’s peanut fields. Jimmy Carter built the family farm into a thriving agribusiness after leaving the Navy. (Frank Johnston/The Washington Post)
Dec. 13, 1974 Carter holds his daughter, Amy, 7, just after he officially announced in Atlanta that he would seek the Democratic nomination for president. He had been quietly laying the groundwork for his bid with the help of longtime key aides Hamilton Jordan and Jody Powell. (AP)
July 15, 1976 Jimmy Carter on the final night of the 1976 Democratic National Convention at Madison Square Garden in New York, the culmination of a campaign that brought him from relative obscurity to winning his party's presidential nomination. (AP)
Sept. 23, 1976 Carter debates President Gerald Ford at Philadelphia's Walnut Street Theater in the first of three televised debates. Carter's 30-point lead in polls in early fall evaporated after a number of campaign stumbles. (AP)
Jan. 20, 1977 The Carters and daughter Amy got out of the presidential limousine to walk the parade route between the Capitol and the White House after his inauguration — an early signal of his disdain for the “imperial” trappings of the presidency. (Suzanne Vlamis/AP)
Aug. 4, 1977 Carter is applauded by members of Congress in the White House Rose Garden after signing a bill creating the Energy Department in 1977. Energy policy was a major focus of his administration, as well as a source of political headaches. (Barry Thumma/AP)
Aug. 30, 1977 Carter meets at the White House with civic leaders from Georgia and Florida to explain the Panama Canal treaty, which he pushed through despite fierce conservative opposition. It gave Panama control of the canal beginning in 2000. (Harvey Georges/AP)
Sept. 6, 1978 Carter is flanked by Egyptian President Anwar Sadat, left, and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin at Camp David, Md., during negotiations that produced a signature success of his presidency: the peace treaty between Egypt and Israel. (WHITE HOUSE/AP)
July 15, 1978 Carter and West German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt are all smiles as they prepare to depart Berlin after visiting the Berlin Wall and the Airlift Memorial. The military buildup credited with hastening the demise of the Soviet Union began under Carter. (AP)
April 1, 1979 The Carters visit the control room of the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant near Middletown, Pa., a few days after the partial meltdown of a reactor there. It was a setback not only for nuclear energy but also for Carter's energy initiatives. (AP)
March 10, 1979 The Carters exchange a kiss before he boards a helicopter for a trip from the White House to Camp David, Md. An activist first lady, Rosalynn Carter attended Cabinet meetings and policy sessions and served as a trusted adviser to the president. (Barry Thumma/AP)
June 18, 1979 Carter with Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev outside the U.S. Embassy in Vienna, where they met for private talks before signing the SALT II treaty limiting nuclear arms. Carter withdrew the pact from Senate consideration when Soviet forces invaded Afghanistan. (AP)
July 15, 1979 At a service station in Los Angeles, a college student watches Carter deliver a nationally televised speech on the 1979 energy crisis. The Iranian revolution disrupted oil production, and soaring prices and long lines at gas stations eroded Carter's popularity. (Mao/AP)
Aug. 30, 1979 Carter's encounter with a swimming “killer rabbit” while he was fishing was widely lampooned. The story reinforced an impression, cultivated by his political opponents, of a hapless president unequal to his office. (AP)
Oct. 28, 1980 Carter, left, and Republican presidential candidate Ronald Reagan shake hands after their debate in Cleveland. (Madeline Drexler/AP)
Nov. 4, 1980 Carter, accompanied by his wife, Rosalynn, and other family members, tells supporters at a Washington hotel that he has conceded the presidential election to Republican Ronald Reagan, who won by almost 10 percentage points, sweeping 44 of the 50 states. (AP)
Jan. 20, 1981 Carter kisses and hugs his mother, Lillian, after arriving in Plains to begin, at age 56, what became a widely lauded post-presidential life. (JOE HOLLOWAY JR./AP)
Jan. 21, 1981 Carter's first act after leaving the White House was a meeting in Germany with 52 Americans whose 444 days in captivity at the U.S. Embassy in Tehran at the hands of Iranian militants became one of the crises derailing his reelection hopes. (AP)
July 4, 1990 Carter waves to the crowd after receiving the Liberty Medal in Philadelphia. (Carol Francavilla/AP)
June 18, 1994 A North Korean border guard directs the Carters to the South Korean side of the demilitarized zone after a meeting with North Korean leader Kim Il Sung. The meeting helped defuse a crisis over North Korea's nuclear weapons program and paved the way for an agreement reached by the Clinton administration. (CHOO YOUN-KONG/AFP/Getty Images)
Oct. 11, 2005 Carter exits a polling site while monitoring Liberia's elections in the capital, Monrovia. As a roving ambassador, he was trusted by fledgling democracies that asked him to monitor elections in Panama, Nicaragua, Haiti, the Dominican Republic, Zambia, the West Bank and Gaza. (Chris Hondros/Getty Images)
May 21, 2007 Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter, at ages 82 and 79, help with post-hurricane housing construction in Violet, La. For decades, the Carters spent a week a year with Habitat for Humanity, the Georgia-based nonprofit organization that constructs housing for low-income people. (Alex Brandon/AP)
Jan. 7, 2009 Carter and fellow former presidents George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton at a White House gathering with President-elect Barack Obama and President George W. Bush in early January 2009. (J. Scott Applewhite/AP)
Oct. 11, 2010 Carter in the Plains, Ga., ranch house that he and his wife, Rosalynn, built for themselves in 1961. Carter lived more modestly than any ex-president since Harry S. Truman, whom Carter called his favorite president. (Bill O'Leary/The Washington Post)
Oct. 10, 2010 Carter began teaching Sunday school as a teenager and taught weekly at Maranatha Baptist Church in Plains into his 90s. On this particular Sunday, a lesson about emulating Jesus turned into a critique of anti-immigrant sentiment. (Bill O'Leary/The Washington Post)
Oct. 22, 2010 Carter addresses a demonstration in East Jerusalem protesting the eviction of Palestinians by Israeli authorities. Mary Robinson, a former president of Ireland, is behind him. Carter’s sometimes outspoken criticism of U.S. policies could provoke outrage. (Bernat Armangue/AP)
Jan. 14, 2016 Carter is awarded the Order of Manuel Amador Guerrero by Panamanian President Juan Carlos Varela during a ceremony at the Carter Center in Atlanta. The award, named for Panama's first president, recognizes accomplishments in politics, science and the arts. (John Bazemore/AP)
Jan. 20, 2017 Jimmy Carter, then 92, arrives with Rosalynn at the Capitol for the presidential inauguration of Donald Trump. He was an unsparing critic of Trump and said it would be “a disaster” if he won reelection. (Saul Loeb/Pool/AP)
Aug. 4, 2018 Jimmy Carter prays with friend Jill Stuckey, center, and others before one of their Saturday dinners at her home in Plains. Carter was a champion for his hometown. In a 2018 interview, he said he and Rosalynn wanted to be buried in Plains partly because they knew their gravesite would draw tourists. (Matt McClain/The Washington Post)
Aug. 4, 2018 The Carters walk home after dinner at their friend Jill Stuckey's house in Plains. At the Carters' 75th anniversary party in July 2021, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said, “I thought he was a great president because he was a president of values, and he acted upon the values.” (Matt McClain/The Washington Post)
Jimmy Carter: The life of the 39th president
Jimmy Carter, a steel-willed Southern governor who was elected president in 1976, died at his home in Plains, Georgia, according to his son James E. Carter III, known as Chip. He was 100 and the oldest living U.S. president of all time. Follow live updates.
The un-celebrity president: Jimmy Carter’s simple and modest lifestyle was rare, in sharp contrast to his successors. He declined the corporate board memberships and lucrative speaking engagements, and decided that his income would come from writing. He wrote 33 books and helped renovate 4,300 homes for Habitat for Humanity.
Rosalynn and Jimmy Carter: Rosalynn Carter, a close political and policy adviser to her husband, died Nov. 19, 2023. The Carters were married for more than 77 years, the longest presidential marriage in U.S. history. Their love story blossomed in World War II and survived the searing scrutiny of political life. Rosalynn Carter expanded the role of first lad
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